“Is Everyone OK?” A GOP Lullaby That Makes You Want To Cry
After our billionaire President humiliated America by kicking Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky out of the Oval Office I texted my daughter in the United Kingdom: “I am so glad you live in a safe country.”
“It made me want to cry,” she replied. “I am very worried for my children’s futures.”
She is not alone, especially in Ukraine where thousands of children lucky enough to survive Putin’s bombings of kindergartens and pediatric wards have been kidnapped. Stripped of their citizenship they have been repatriated to Russian foster homes and forced to abandon their language.
As Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin put it in her Democratic response to Vladimir Putin asset Donald Trump after his State of the Union address: “Reagan must be rolling over in his grave.”
While our Republican leadership votes with Russia and North Korea in the United Nations and turns its back on trusted allies in Canada and Europe, every parent needs to worry about the new GOP threat from within.
Donald Trump’s White House press releases touting his effort to protect America’s young people read like a GOP lullaby. The reality is that his administration has become an unprecedented threat to all our children and grandchildren.
From school bus drivers to crossing guards to lifeguards to pediatricians who vaccinate against measles and Covid, we put our trust in people dedicated to the safety of our young people.
Thanks to government funded research, good medicine means children born today are expected to live to the ripe old age of 100. Federally mandated seatbelts protect our teenage drivers and our second to none public libraries help children pursue their dreams without fear of censorship. America’s colleges have long safeguarded free speech and promoted diverse curriculums.
During World War 2 we defeated police states where fascists censored history, arrested dissidents and treated political protests as a criminal act. Unlike Russia our President does not have a personal 350,000 man “national guard” security force enforcing martial law.
We expect our children to grow up treating others with respect, keeping an open mind, welcoming other points of view, and avoiding threatening behavior when they don’t get their way.
Parents want to be sure political decision makers protect children who do not have the right to vote on behalf of their own interests. Above all we expect our leaders to tell the truth, even when it hurts.
Since January 20 the party of Abraham Lincoln, founded to fight slavery in our Western Territories, has been led by a bigot who is also a convicted felon.
Not since 1981, when Ronald (The Gipper) Reagan went to Congress and “pounded the podium to cut the social security programs benefiting the surviving children” of deceased or disabled parents, has there been a more blatant attempt to undercut the welfare of our young people
Republican Justice Department attorneys have filed an “emergency”appeal” challenging the the 14th amendment protecting birthright citizenship of all children born in America since 1868. If his crackdown on legal immigration programs for 875,000 immigrants from war torn countries like Ukraine and Haiti succeeds some children could be arrested at school and deported.
The downpour of misinformation from cabinet officials with zero medical training could lead to an uptick of childhood diseases such as measles that were eradicated in America decades ago. Cessation of foreign aid has instantly cancelled vaccination and AIDS prevention campaigns in some of the most impoverished countries on earth.
Half a million tons of food sent abroad for humanitarian relief rots in the warehouses of some of the poorest nations on earth. At the same time more than $1 billion in USDA cuts mean millions of children may lose free school meals as their parents struggle to afford the rising price of groceries.
While the Republicans launch a trade war against Canada over a tiny amount of fetanyl slipping across our border, the critically important Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration faces cataclysmic 50 to 70 percent budget cuts. This mistake ignores the fact that between 1999 and 2024 more people died of drug overdoses than Covid.
So called pro-life Republicans support the arbitrary elimination of the successful Agency for International Development (and its website) lives around the world, especially in war torn countries like Ukraine.
It’s the same story in our armed forces. Students attending Armed Forces military schools around the world recently found their libraries shuttered to give book banners time to weed out volumes addressing diversity, equity and inclusion.
Over 26,000 images have been purged under DEI orders including a shot of the World War 2 Enola Gay nuclear bomber and the first woman to pass Marine infantry training. Army websites for student walking tours of minority medal of honor winners buried at Washington’s Arlington Cemetery have been “unpublished” . The “notable graves” web section including Gen. Colin Powell, boxing champ Joe Louis and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall is also missing in action thanks to Republican government censors.
Funding cuts are dramatically impacting critical childcare grants and the learning environment from preschool to higher education. Head Start money for early childhood education programs has been frozen in 24 states along with grants promoting pedestrian safety near schools.
Republican leaders are also focused on cuts that will slash academic research into diseases such as childhood cancer.
At the same time experimental treatments for medicines that may save lives are being cancelled Republican cabinet officials are encouraging parents to embrace junk science DIY treatment at considerable risk.
Equally worrisome are Trump’s Big Brother Musketeers who now have access to sensitive child support databases. At the same time Republicans are cutting off funding for programs helping disabled teens after high school.
Through a new government portal students are encouraged to instantly rat out teachers defying unprecedented government anti-DEI mandates. For the first time in over sixty years the Justice Department’s civil rights division has suspended new cases, indictments and settlements.
To avoid letting suspects slip away on spring break, the Department of Homeland Security has begun arresting students they want to punish for campaigning against Immigration and Customs Enforcement campus arrests.
Students who protest mass deportations, or march against genocide in Ukraine and Gaza could be detained. In some cases they may be sent to military detention camps en route to deportation as hundreds of millions in federal funding for their schools is slashed.
This law and order crackdown on young people is happening shortly after the President pardoned more than 1,500 people charged with crimes in the January 6, 2020, riot at the capitol, including felons serving long sentences.
Shortly after this mass release opposed by many police organizations, one was killed after resisting arrest. Another will be sentenced in May for threatening to kill federal agents who arrested him. A third is awaiting trial in Texas on child sexual assault charges.
Even programs for children at Washington’s Kennedy Center and collections at the Smithsonian Institution could be vulnterable in this targeted DEI attack on our treasured traditions and proud history.
Buoyed by DEI disinformation campaigns and the threats of GOP billionaires to unseat “disloyal” members of their own party, Republicans echo the soundbites of Russia’s dictator.
As the very agencies protecting our food, water, roadways and airways are threatened with cuts by the richest man in the world (the recipient of $38 billion in government funding), parents have good reason to challenge America’s new leadership in court.
That could be difficult. Our new vice president has raised the possibility of defying judgements all the way up to the Supreme Court. Understandably this has deeply concerned Chief Justice John Roberts.
Likewise the threat of warrantless arrests by the Immigration and Naturalization Service could force parents to keep their children away from schools and medical centers.
While the top Republican liquidator of the civil service, places his 11 children and their mothers in a well guarded $35 million Texas compound, less affluent parents must prepare their children for active shooter drills.
Blame the GOP for this enhanced threat to school safety. Their world view is shaped by generous campaign contributions from the gun industry. They take pride in sanctioning the public sale of millions of deadly semiautomatic weapons including many that illegally wind up in the hands of Mexican druglords Trump decries as a threat to our children.
These same death machines are banned by the Canadian, Mexican governments, as well as the Soviet Union where a psychological exam is required to buy a mere handgun or shotgun.
Opposition to new government threats to our children are some of the reasons why Republican leadership discourages its elected representatives from holding town halls. The growing backlash from parents could become a decisive factor in 2026 elections and beyond.
With five children and ten grandchildren, Poppa Trump knows that the political future of his party depends on family values, i.e. convincing voters that Republicans wake up thinking about the welfare of your children.
This is one of the reasons he publicly extolls his ardor for daughter Ivanka who happens to be a convenient prop for photo ops. Far from a Freudian slip, this “tell it like it is” talk woos a key GOP voter niche. It also explains why he has been less enthusiastic about photographs with her stepsister.
“In August 2019,” says Sex and Presidents author Eleanor Herman, “Trump’s personal assistant, Madeline Westerhout, lost her job after she told reporters the president didn’t like being photographed with (his daughter) Tiffany because he thought she was fat and joked that he couldn’t pick her out of a crowd.
“Tiffany grew up without her father - reportedly seeing him only four times between his separation from his second wife Marla Maples in 1977 and the start of his campaign in 2015. Indeed Tiffany was treated by Trump something like the bastard child of an eighteenth-century English Duke.”
From time to time our President does sound protective of other people’s daughters. In a 2005 interview with radio host Howard Stern, Miss USA pageant owner Trump bragged about visiting the dressing rooms of contestants over 18.
“I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it. Is everyone OK? You know, they’re standing there with no clothes…. And you see these incredible looking women, and so I sort of get away with things like that.”
This disgraceful Republican is busily setting the political table for America’s families. No wonder my daughter worries about the future of my grandchildren.
Roger Rapoport (rogerrapoport.com) is the producer and screenwriter of the World War 2 feature film Old Heart (oldheartmovie.com) set for release this spring.
Photo Credit: MST Services